Angels Cry Foul, File Claim Against Anaheim

A simmering feud between the California Angels and the City of Anaheim heated up again Tuesday as the baseball club filed a $1-million claim against the city, alleging fraud on the part of City Manager William Talley.

The claim arose after Talley met with Angels Vice President Michael Schreter on Monday to go over an 18-page agreement addressing several problems between the two sides. Schreter alleges that Talley altered terms or simply deleted several issues from the document after agreeing to them in person; Talley says the Angels were told “continuously during our meetings that the city was not prepared at this time to settle some matters.”

The problems began in August, 1983, when Angels owner Gene Autry filed suit in Orange County Superior Court to stop a city-approved $200-million high-rise office project in the stadium parking lot. The project, part of the agreement that brought the Los Angeles Rams football team to Anaheim, would be built by Anaheim Stadium Associates, a joint venture of the development firm of Cabot, Cabot and Forbes of Los Angeles and Ramco, a firm owned by heirs of the late Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom.

Monday’s agreement didn’t address the parking lot development (since that lawsuit involves a third party, Anaheim Stadium Associates) but rather the many other disputes that arose between the baseball club and the city in the wake of that litigation.

Talley wouldn’t reveal the exact issues contained in the proposed settlement except to say that they involved a “service agreement” and a proposal on how the two sides would handle future disputes.

He said Schreter wanted settlements in the document concerning television revenues and the removal of Union 76 advertising from the stadium. Schreter said he is concerned with 25 issues, citing the Angels’ proposal to double rental rates on outfield seats as one problem left out of the document.

Talley read a prepared statement Tuesday noting that all proposals in the settlement had been withdrawn and characterizing the fraud charge as a “threat.”

“I cannot operate while being threatened,” he said. “I will not be subject to threats or coercion and I will make public any further attempts to influence my negotiations.”

Schreter said the fraud charge wasn’t a threat to force the city into action and said he would have preferred to go back to the negotiating table but Talley wouldn’t return his phone calls.